Vince Vaughn has been on the kind of losing streak lately that forces a change in career direction. In fairness to the genuinely talented actor and writer, he's gone and done that with a starring role (as a villain no less) in the second season of True Detective - opposite our own Colin Farrell.
Despite the critical and financial hammering that their last collaboration (the dire Delivery Man) took, Vaughn has once again teamed up with director Ken Scott for this surprisingly raunchy comedy centring around Vaughn's start-up boss attempting to close an important deal so he can keep Tom Wilkinson and Dave Franco employed. Inexplicably ending up in Germany, they embrace the local culture as Vaughn pushes to get that all important handshake and close the deal. Meanwhile, he's dealing with the pressures of home as his kids struggle with school while he's away.
Unfinished Business wasn't screened for critics and that's never a good sign. The studio rightly or wrongly figured that given the aforementioned streak that Vaughn is on, he wouldn't get a fair ride by critics. If anything the lack of screening has lowered expectations enough that there's actually a couple of laughs here - most notably on account of Franco.
There's no denying the fact that it's a bit of a mess, and wastes a strong supporting cast (Sienna Miller and James Marsden make sporadic, equally fleeting appearances), but if you look hard enough there's a decent, sometimes amusing and almost sweet film hidden in deep in there. Somewhere.
After the success of Swingers it took a while for Vaughn to gravitate towards comedy; but when Old School, Wedding Crashers and Dodgeball hit, he eventually fell back on his frantic charisma as a default setting and still somehow managed to make Couple's Retreat and Four Christmases box office hits. But audiences soon grew tired, and if his affair with HBO does anything, hopefully it reminds him just how good he can be when he's creatively invigorated.
An average comedy that has a couple of funny moments, but too many odd ones to really gel. It'll likely be the last time we see Dave Franco in such a supporting role, and hopefully the last time we see Vaughn phoning it in.